Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Guns, Cakes, and things

Sorry I dropped off the face of the planet. Life has kept me very busy lately with family visits, doctor's appointments, and multiple birthdays including my own. My awesome sister even gave me a Glock 23 for my birthday:

It's a cake made of chocolate that she made from a mold of my Brother in Law's Glock. Really cool. It was a little melted when I took the picture. We had a small birthday party for my daughter complete with a ton of kids running around, and that cake was sitting on the kitchen counter. Every time I would glance down I would immediately reach for it, as if to place it high up somewhere to keep it out of the kid's hands. It looks that real at first.

I am 98% done with my MK12 Mod 0 build; the OPS Inc. muzzle brake came in the mail yesterday, and I had to fabricate a washer from a brass disk to make sure it was properly timed. The Harris bipod and sling mounts are in the mail, and I still need to get an A.R.M.S. #52 quick throw mount for the bipod.

The caliber of my Mod 0 is .264 LBC AR, which is Les Baer's take on the 6.5 Grendel. They are basically the same thing, and my Lapua brass is stamped 6.5 Grendel on the case head; dies are also Grendel. I did some handloading for it, so hopefully I'll get an hour or two to burn at the range this week.

Building this was slow and painful. Very few barrel makers are licensed to chamber in 6.5 Grendel, as Alexander Arms keeps an iron grip on that Grendel name. Because of that, several cartridges have been spawned that differ in name only. I originally tried to go through Satern Machining for a barrel, but they didn't know the specifications for a MK12 barrel. I tried for two months to work with them, but they are very busy cranking out barrels and I wasn't getting any where, so I called Les Baer. He helped in the development of the Grendel, and in the wake of the licensing he made his own cartridge called the .264 LBC AR.

I ordered Les' 20" heavy barrel, and when I got it I sent it to ADCO Firearms to have it cut to 18" and turned down to a SPR profile that matches the MK12. It's got cut rifling, which I insisted on, and it's all stainless, so I coated it in Brownell's Alumahyde II in Dark Parkerizing Grey. It looks awesome. Here's the barrel hanging from my ceiling after I coated it:

Assembly was relatively easy. This gun is very close to spec for the Mod 0, with only minor infractions keeping it from being perfect. I still want to get a Storm or Pelican case with cut foam for it, and also the suppressor. I have to get the .30 caliber version though because the OPS Inc 12th model in 5.56mm obviously will not work.

Also for my birthday I got a box of Federal's 147 grain HST +P. I had 15 minutes to spare the other day, so I shot 20 of them or so out of my Glock 26 to see how they would do. In the scorching heat under the ticking clock in my head I managed a 3 1/8" five shot group at 25 yards, which is nothing to sneeze at from the subcompact blaster. I did a few draws to make sure it was controllable, and got velocity of 975 fps on average. This ammo rocks, and will be what I am going to chamber my Glock 17 in soon. The 25 yard group is the middle dot:

That's about all I have for today. When I get the bipod and A.R.M.S. mount I'll do some glamor shots of the Mod 0, and also a range report. I should also do up a build sheet to capture all the parts and effort I put into this thing.